In my early twenties I went backpacking in Australia with my girlfriend. During that trip we spent three days on a catamaran sailing the Great Barrier Reef with a group of people. One of the best times of my life.
When I first entered the catamaran the hosts asked me if I could play guitar. I was dumbfounded and said “huh, yes I do” and thought to myself, “how did they know that?” Later I would find out they asked everyone the same question.
In the evening we would all come together for a drink and a laugh. And then suddenly one of the hosts came out with a guitar and started playing and singing songs to entertain everyone.
Then after a while they handed the guitar over to me and said “Now it’s your turn!”. I thought, okay I’ll play a couple of tunes (I had been playing for about ten years by then) and suddenly I realized I could play a whole bunch of songs and some pretty cool solos, but I couldn’t sing the lyrics to the songs because I didn’t got them memorized.
Luckily my girlfriend was with me who is a singer and it turned out to be a great evening. Everyone sang along and was really enthusiastic.
I was saved! I realized what a shame it was that I couldn’t sing a few songs myself. A missed opportunity, but also a lesson learned. I would focus on memorizing song lyrics!
Here are 10 effective ways to get the job done:
